


lose the feeling

by paxamdays



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Anorexia, Bulimia, Eating Disorders, M/M, Relationship Problems
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-30
Updated: 2020-09-30
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:14:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26731225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paxamdays/pseuds/paxamdays
Summary: Sirius Black is not afraid of death. Sirius Black is also a liar. But then again, he's used to this sort of thing by now.
Relationships: Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Comments: 10
Kudos: 66





	lose the feeling

**Author's Note:**

> been a hot second since i posted anything. anyway, this is a poorly written vent fic as my mental health is rapidly declining and i needed to project somehow lol. obvious trigger warnings for eating disorders (particularly anorexia and bulimia), as well as sort of suicidal and depressive thoughts? idk sirius laments about death a lot so maybe that could be considered as such. this is also a non magical au solely because i couldn't excuse the mention of phones in any other way.
> 
> edit 7/3/21: i have retrospectively realised that i could've used fucking howlers but i can't be arsed to rewrite this, despite how minimal it may be. so.

One day, Sirius is going to die and no one will care about it.

Of course, this sentiment is comprised of two smaller ones, both of which are not mutually exclusive with each other. Sirius _will_ die — that's just a given. Everyone dies. The question is, _how do we handle it?_ Or rather, _how does everyone else handle it?_

(For example, Andromeda died when she was ten from a cerebral haemorrhage. Sirius was five, and although he may have been too young to fully understand the concept of death, something about losing your favourite cousin forever to a great big nothingness stays with you, regardless of how old you are.)

The second part of this belief is a little less straightforward. One could argue that Sirius is being pessimistic; despite having a family that couldn't give two shits as to whether he lived or died (save for Regulus, maybe), he had friends who constantly made it clear that they loved him deeply.

But Sirius isn't a pessimist; he's a realist. And one day, he'll die. One day, they won't care anymore. And it won't even matter.

•

Remus is a shit cook and Sirius doesn't eat anyway. A match made in heaven.

But they try, they really do. Remus reads cookbooks and his mother's recipes; sometimes he even resorts to asinine magazine articles when he's feeling that desperate. And Sirius cuts his dry chicken into tiny pieces, to the point where it's shredded, and he swallows down burnt vegetables and wants to cry the entire time.

But Remus tries, so Sirius feels the need to try for him.

_God, you're such a shit person._

"Is it good?" Remus says softly. Sirius doesn't look up — too fixated on mushing his peas into a fine paste — but he can feel Remus' eyes burning a hole into his skull. His cutlery slices through the peas and scrapes on the plate.

"Mm hm." He winces as he takes a bite, and Remus doesn't say anything for a while. But the long, uneasy silence is soon interrupted.

"You don't have to eat it if you don't want to."

"I like your cooking, Reme. Really, I do."

"That's not what I mean."

This time Sirius does look up, but Remus has already left the room.

•

He's not sure when it got this bad. But he knows that he should have it under control by now. He's getting too old for this shit.

In terms of, well, _life_ in general, 23 is not old. In fact, he's barely an adult. Sure, legally he's been one for the past five years. But Sirius isn't certain if he's ever really matured past the age of fifteen; he's not sure if he ever will.

Fifteen year old Sirius was lean and handsome, crude yet charming. He was a cocky bastard who stood up for his friends and tried his very best, despite everything he thought about himself.

(Fifteen year old Sirius also stuck his fingers down his throat and pushed so hard he began to cry. This was his first flirtation with what would become a constant issue.)

Fifteen year old Remus fell in love with this form of Sirius. Apparently, he's been in love with him ever since. But Sirius has his doubts.

•

_50 (coffee, milk, no sugar)_   
_69 (3 rice cakes)_   
_= 119_

_dinner ???_

_purge_

The pen marks the paper, leaving behind messy words and calculations. Sirius exhales softly. Surely there are better ways to spend a Tuesday morning.

"Coffee?" Remus calls out from the kitchen, as if this is a scene and he's reading from a script Sirius has drafted.

"Sure."

Soon enough, Remus is sitting across from him, sipping from a blue mug and watching. Why is he always watching?

"It's Tuesday", he says between prolonged sips of coffee.

"I'm aware."

Remus waits for a response. Sirius doesn't oblige him because he's a fucking asshole.

"It's Harry's birthday today. He's five."

 _Bloody hell._ "James and Lily had something planned, didn't they?"

Apparently, they did, and Sirius forgot because of course he did. Remus says, "You don't need to come if you don't want to."

"And why wouldn't I want to come?" Sirius replies sharply, although he's not entirely sure why.

"I know you get upset at gatherings."

"I'm not fucking fragile, Reme."

"I never said you were."

"Then why do you feel the need to insinuate that I wouldn't want to come to my own godson's birthday?"

"I saw you writing—"

"You don't think I'm able to put that aside for one day?"

"Sirius—"

"Fucking unbelievable."

•

They _do_ go to Harry's party. Neither of them say a word during the car ride. Sirius substitutes conversation with a cigarette; partly because he's stressed and needs to take his mind off eating, even if it's just momentarily, partly because Remus hates this habit of his.

At the party, everyone is all laughter and smiles, and there's this atmosphere that Sirius can't fully describe, but he knows Godric Hollow has a certain warmth that he can never seem to find anywhere else. James greets them, beaming. Peter grins, arm wrapped around Mary's waist. Remus is lost to the sea of hungry faces, who indulge in him in a way Sirius doesn't think he's capable of. At last, the birthday boy himself, little Harry, comes running towards him and crashes into his legs, clinging onto his jeans.

"Sirius!" he squeals. Sirius picks him up and throws him over his shoulder, spinning round and round until the room begins to close in on him and he goes dizzy. But Harry loves it. Harry loves everything about him.

He puts Harry down when Lily gets to him, smiling at her son as he runs off to his next adventure, and bringing Sirius in for a tight hug. Sirius closes his eyes. He's missed this.

"God, we're getting old", she laughs. He wants to fucking cry all of a sudden, because this is what happens when you're emotionally unstable and very dependent. He holds her tighter.

"Speak for yourself. I'm kickin', as the kids tend to say."

Lily's hands run over his sharp shoulder bones. She pulls away and frowns, looking him up and down. "Are you okay?"

"I think we're beyond that."

"Don't humour me. You haven't been eating."

He has, even if it's sporadic. He just doesn't tend to keep it down. "What's new?"

"Sirius. Be genuine with me."

Because he's renowned for being genuine. "I'm getting better."

"No you're not."

"I'd appreciate it if you didn't lecture me. At least not here."

Lily looks around — luckily, everyone is focused on Harry and his dance routine, or something to that effect — and pulls him into the kitchen (and Sirius notices the way her body stiffens when her fingers catch his wrist and the tips of her forefinger and thumb manage to meet with ease, although he tries his hardest not to, because it fucking kills him inside). "I know when you're lying to me, Sirius. Has anything been going on at home?"

"You think you can pull some therapy bullshit on me and get a sufficient answer?" He laughs bitterly and runs his hand over his chin. "God. Can I have a smoke in here?"

"Not near everyone. Remus doesn't like smoking anyway."

"Fuck Remus."

Her eyebrow raises. "Okay. Is this a factor I need to account for?"

"We're just going through things right now."

Before Lily can press on, Sirius makes a beeline towards the fridge and opens it, taking out a beer on the bottom shelf, because calories be damned, right? Lily scolds him. "You're not getting shitfaced on my son's birthday."

"I don't intend to. I'm frankly insulted that you think I can't hold more than one beer down."

It's almost like Lily wants to challenge that. But she doesn't. Sirius steps back out into the living room, leaving her alone.

•

He doesn't get shitfaced. He binges a little though, cries a lot. Throws up. It's almost like a routine at this point.

No one really noticed it happen. Except for Remus.

After the party had moved outside, Sirius found himself back in the kitchen, lighting a cigarette and taking in a drag. There was food everywhere. He ignored it, staying focused on his smoke.

But sometimes he gets overwhelmed and can't help himself from doing things.

It's not that he blacked out. He just doesn't really remember what happened beyond that point. It'd be cliche to say everything become a blur, although that's the only way he can describe it. Then he was on the floor, surrounded by dozens of wrappers and boxes, body aching. Burning. Mind clouded over.

In a moment of pure patheticness, Sirius crawled — fucking crawled — towards the bathroom. He could hear raucous laughter emitting from the backyard. He wanted to die.

The cold porcelain provided a sense of stability for him as he gripped it with trembling hands. This is where the routine reaches its penultimate. This is when his fingers dipped into his mouth like long, skinny legs into a body of water, soaking up the coolness of it all. They brushed up against the inside of his throat. Euphoric.

There's a chorus of _'Happy birthday',_ hazy on his ears and barely audible. There's a muffled voice, someone saying, _'Where's Sirius?'';_ Sirius wished they cared less. Things would have been easier that way.

His eyes began to close once black blotches danced across his vision. The bathroom door opened, and Sirius smiled when Remus caught his body as it came crashing down against the tiles.

•

"One day I'll die, and no one will care about it."

This is said to no one. He's laying in bed, staring at the ceiling. Remus snores softly beside him, arm still resting on Sirius' chest. They didn't mention the events of Harry's party, nor did anyone else. Except for Lily, of course, who called as soon as they had gotten home. Sirius was already half sleep, soaked in sweat and the taste of her entire fucking kitchen still lingering on his mouth. But he could hear her voicemail from downstairs — _"Sirius, what happened? Remus wouldn't say anything. Are you okay? Please call back soon. I love you."_

That's the issue with Lily; she has too much love to give for people who are undeserving of it. Her prick of a sister, her prick of an ex-best friend. Sirius, also a prick. He really doesn't deserve her (or Remus, for that matter, who cleaned up the mess he had made in the Potters' bathroom and put him in the car. He can't even take care of _himself_ properly.)

He turns on to his side, careful not to disrupt Remus, only to see that he is sunken into the mattress, eyelashes fluttering and lips parted. His freckles are dusted across his face like stars across a dark stretch of sky, over the raised skin spanning from the edge of his forehead to the left corner of his bottom lip; Sirius isn't normally one for poetry, but he can't help but think of Remus as an enigma, the subject of a Renaissance painting who serves as a muse for the most tortured artists, because how could he not? How could Sirius not love him? This tragic thing of beauty, too far gone into the mess that is Sirius Black.

"One day I'll burn up to nothing", he whispers to himself. "And you'll be fine. You'll think of all the time you wasted, the things you could've done. The places you could've seen. The people you would've loved."

Remus makes hushed noises in his sleep and rolls onto him a little bit. The sheets are heavy on his fragile body; Sirius runs his hands over them and feels nothing.

•

Things don't go exactly to plan. Sirius attempts to leave Remus instead of vice versa. Key word: _attempts._ Like most things in Sirius' life, nothing happens the way it should.

He's in the middle of packing a suitcase when Remus comes bursting into their bedroom. Sirius freezes like he's committed a crime. Maybe he's not too far off.

"What the fuck is this?" Remus says, waving a piece of paper in the air. He doesn't allow Sirius to answer; it's not like he was going to anyway, but the opportunity would have been nice. _"'I'm not good for you.' "I'm toxic.' 'I need to be alone.'_ You're leaving? You're fucking _leaving?"_

"Please don't be mad at me", Sirius whispers.

"I'm not fucking mad!" Remus shouts, and they both wince. "I'm— I'm _confused_ and I— _I don't know!_ Sirius, I don't know what's happening."

Sirius looks at him and tries, god, he tries so fucking hard to stay composed. His hands turn into fists, digging into his sides. His heart beats harshly against his ribcage. And then he lets it all out, one big display of crying and screaming. Remus seems to follow him as he sinks to the ground.

"I'm not good for you, Reme, I'm not— I'm not a good person. I'm difficult and I make you sad, and god, we're always fighting. And I can't eat like a normal fucking person. You know how useless that makes me feel?"

"You're not useless—"

"But I am! I can't keep anything down. And I'm going to die, I'm going to fucking die and it won't matter when I do."

"Love", Remus murmurs, running a hand through Sirius' matted hair. Perhaps that's what he hates the most; when Remus tries to fix things, or console him, by letting some term of endearment slip off his tongue, saccharine soaked. "Love, I don't want you to die."

"Of course you don't. You're not a monster. You'll just be relieved when I go. It— it hurts. My body hurts so much."

He slumps against Remus and lays his head on his shoulder. "I'm scared, Reme. I don't want to die like this."

"You won't. I promise you won't. I won't let you."

Sirius breaks a little bit more. Remus always thinks he can fix things, even when they're broken beyond repair. "I don't know if I'll ever get any better. I'm getting too old for this, I should have recovered by now."

He laughs; Remus doesn't. Instead, Remus kisses the top of his head, whispering into his hair, "You'll get better, even if it takes an eternity. And I'll be with you the whole time."

He places his hand in Sirius' lap and pulls him in closer. The hot summer air ignites around them, and Sirius suddenly thinks about the coffee settling in the bottom of his stomach. He doesn't want it to come back up.


End file.
